THE Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, (FAAN) has apologised for the power outage at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos.
The apology follows the power outage that occurred at the airport at 11:15 pm on Friday, leaving several passengers stranded.
FAAN’s Acting General Manager Corporate Affairs Faithful Hope-Ivbaze apologised for the incident in a statement released on Saturday.
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The statement said: “FAAN wishes to apologise to passengers and other airport users that witnessed a temporary power outage at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, at about 23:15 hours yesterday, April 1, 2022.
“The outage, which was as a result of yesterday’s rain that came with very fierce winds and storms, a natural occurrence, affected one of our feeders, and consequently resulted in the temporary disruption of power supply at the D Wing of the airport.
“However, our engineers quickly discovered the fault, and liaised with the Ejigbo duty/area control office of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria and together resolved the problem. Normalcy has since been restored at the affected area.”
Meanwhile, findings by THE ICIR showed this is not the first time power outage is being recorded at the said airport.
Some industry analysts who spoke to The ICIR said the fresh power outage has exposed poor contigency plans on the part of the management of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos.
Available records show there has been similar outages in the past.
There were reports of power outage at the airport in 2016, 2018 and 2020.
“There’s nothing that has happened at the airport that is new in the aviation sector. We currently have nothing less than six big generating plants but there is no periodic maintenance of the plants,” aviation security consultant and Secretary General of the Safety Round Table Initiative (ASRTI) John Ojikutu told The ICIR.
He noted that airport management should have a sense of responsibility and ensure periodic maintenance of critical national assets.
“Also, there must be contingency plan for the airport to avoid the recurrence of this incidence,” he said.
Ojikutu further stressed the importance of having alternative plans for the airport’s power supply especially now that bandits are on the rampage.
“Bandits are everywhere and we cannot afford to be casual in our approach. We don’t have contingency plan for light at the airport. We need to do that urgently,” he said.
He stressed that apart from the power outage, the second runway at the airport has no street light for nearly 13 years, a development which he says calls for concern.
Commenting on the development, a power sector analyst and former General Manager at the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, Oyebode Fadipe told The ICIR that it is a huge security risk for the airport to witness power outage.
“Airport is the gateway to the country, imagine if there is any flight about landing at about that time. It could cause a problem for the flight.”
Fadipe urged the airport’s management to find a solution to the problem to avoid a repeat.
Harrison Edeh is a journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, always determined to drive advocacy for good governance through holding public officials and businesses accountable.